GCG
| Branding

Driving domestic awareness on a global scale

Hothouse was recently engaged to refresh the brand of a legal class action services firm, Garden City Group, named for their original headquarters in Garden City, NY. Like any true marketing venture, the ask stemmed from a bigger challenge: the company had previously operated solely in the United States and now, due to recent and continual expansion into both Canada and Europe, they needed an identity that would resonate on a global scale without losing awareness at home. Through the strategic collaboration between our account service and creative teams, we were able to deliver an identity package that resulted in a winning client verdict.

share this

Identity. Evolved.

Before mapping out the future of the brand, we had to understand its previous journey through a series of interviews and an immersive discovery workshop with stakeholders. A key insight emerged—the equity earned by the original Garden City Group name was important to retain. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most strategic and much like Price Waterhouse Cooper transitioned to pwc, we recommended streamlining Garden City Group to the more modern GCG. The new visual identity echoed this sophisticated solve, utilizing a clean typeface and series of plus signs, which visually mimicked forward momentum. A tagline—Experience. Evolved.—was crafted to communicate the company’s emergence into a new market, yet its success is rooted in decades of strategic insight and successes.

Collateral Reimagined

Once the name, logo and tagline were in place, the team turned its attention to reimagining all of GCG’s collateral. This included both internal and external marketing, advertising templates and employee identification assets, such as business cards and email signatures. As part of this phase, our designers dove deep into the company’s values—such as enthusiasm, inclusiveness and personal touch—to select photography that would connect with GCG’s new global audience and visually continue the brand’s story.

Guiding Right

No branding project is complete without a fresh set of brand guidelines designed to help the internal marketing team at GCG bring the new identity to life. It also serves as an incredibly important instructional tool for outside vendors or partners, giving them clear guidelines to work within so that the GCG brand is always protected. As part of these guidelines, it was important to provide GCG employees and stakeholders and explanation of WHY the rebrand occurred, so we crafted a positioning statement and brand story to create an internal rally cry. With the new identity in place, GCG is ready to take on the world. Literally.